Azam Sultan Suhrwardy
The Government of British India maintained buffer zones between the subcontinent and its foreign neighbors such as Iran and Afghanistan. The British control of Balochistan was restricted to mainly Quetta. In the Frontier the British exercised authority over Peshawar and over some areas of Dera Ismail Khan, Mardan and Hazara only. The rest of the NWFP consisted of a buffer zone between British India and Afghanistan.
Over 85 percent of the territories of Balochistan were kept unsettled. Balochistan was never made a province. It used to be administered by an Agent to the Governor General. All Pakistan governments until 1958 adopted in relation to the remote areas of Balochistan and tribal areas of Frontier almost the same policy as that of the British government.
Whatever his reasons, Ayub Khan during his tenure as President of Pakistan, tried to enforce the writ of the Federal Government over the unsettled territories of Balochistan.
Air Marshal Asghar Khan betrayed Ayub. He did not provide air cover to the troops sent to remote areas of Balochistan. He says he refused to oblige Ayub for he thought a negotiated settlement was the better option.
Actually the Air Marshal and General Yahya both jointly conspired to exploit the Balochistan issue to seek the ouster of Ayub Khan from power. They knew Ayub’s military action with no air cover would fail, and his withdrawal from Balochistan would lead to the division of one unit into four provinces. In that event, Ayub who had ruled in the name of the unity and solidarity of Pakistan would have no alternative but to resign.
After Ayub, Bhutto tried to establish the writ of the federation over the unsettled areas of Balochistan. Baloch tribal leaders, with their vested interests at stake, joined hands with the Maulvis of Pakistan. To highjack Bhutto’s Islamist policies, Nizam-e-Mustafa movement was launched by the Maulvis. Strangely, even the secular NAP of Wali Khan joined this Nizam-e-Mustafa movement.
General Zia, noticing that the separatists and the Maulvis had got together, decided to use this opportunity to oust Bhutto from power.
To ensure that there was no compromise between Bhutto and his political opponents, Zia on the one hand told Bhutto’s opponents to insist on the immediate withdrawal of troops from Balochistan, and on the other prevailed upon Bhutto not to concede this request of the opposition.
Bhutto was told by Zia that the army thought that for the first time in the history of Pakistan, it had reached the remote areas of Balochistan and as it was able to do so at great sacrifice, in case it was asked to withdraw, its men and officers would be very disappointed.
Zia cheated Bhutto on the Balochistan issue. This is proved by the fact that after Bhutto was ousted, the first thing Zia did was to quietly withdraw the troops from Balochistan. There was no reaction from the Army, a highly disciplined force which has always obeyed its chief.
Pervez Musharraf may have continued to rule without making any effort to establish the writ of the government of Pakistan over the remote areas of Balochistan and over the tribal areas. His problem is that in the existing, "post-nine eleven world", he can no longer do so.
The worldwide rise of the drugs trade, terrorism and the likelihood of the latest weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists occupying a piece of land in an unsettled area makes it necessary for every state to ensure that every piece of its every territory is ruled by law, instead of a Sardar.
International public opinion unanimously holds the view that if a state is not in a position to urbanize all areas in its control to safeguard the world at large from terrorism, the superpowers have all the right to intervene and take over any such area under their military control.
The world at large feels that unsettled areas become the refuge and headquarter of terrorists and provide them opportunities to obtain weapons of mass destruction. Some politicians and NGOs are raising a hue and cry against the army action in the Frontier and Balochistan. They do not want the Pakistan Army to succeed in urbanizing the remote areas of Balochistan.
The hope of these opponents of the Islamabad government is that if the Pakistan Army was to withdraw form Balochistan, the armed forces of some other country of the world would be able to land in Balochistan to establish it under the latter’s military protection. A number of "emirates" with their favourite tribal Sardars and Amirs as de jure sovereigns of such Emirates, are in the race.
Those who think that the age-old status quo can continue to prevail in Wana and the unsettled areas of Balochistan in this age of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction live in a fool’s paradise.
It is not only the Sardars and the Khans who are shopping for sovereign emirates in Balochistan and Fata, there may be many in the background striving for such objectives. Even the Agha Khan is shopping for a new Vatican.
The grandfather of the present Agha Khan, known as Agha Khan the third, has stated in his memoirs that it has been a long time desire of the Ismailis to possess a national home. He has said on page 142 of volume 2 of his memoirs the following:
"Some busybodies have ferreted out the fact that in the 1930s, I approached the Government of India and suggested that I might be given a territorial State, and join the company of ruling princes. This is what really happened; it had long been felt among the Ismaili community that it would be desirable to possess a national home - not a big, powerful State, but something on the lines of Tangiers or the Vatican - a scrap of earth of their own, which all Ismailis, all over the world, could call theirs in perpetuity, where they could practice all their customs, establish their own laws, and (on the material side) build up their own financial centre, with its own banks, investment trusts, insurance schemes, and welfare and provident arrangements. The idea of a territorial State made no particular appeal to me, but in view of the strength of Ismaili sentiment on the matter, I made my approach to the Government of India. For reasons which I am sure were perfectly just and fair, the Government of India could not see their way to granting my request."
The Sardars and the Khans ought to know that when a superpower gets an opportunity to establish itself in any foreign territory, the local Sardars and Khans gain absolutely nothing. The intervening superpower in such an event brings someone whom it can trust, and any such person may be someone who is completely an outsider, unheard of any time before.
Pakistan needs its Army to succeed in Balochistan. If the Pakistan Army was to withdraw from Balochistan this time, Pakistan would be considered a failed state all over the world.
The writer is an Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and High Court Lahore
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